The term Egyptian
ArabicArabic is usually used synonymously with CAIRENE
ARABIC, which is technically a dialect of Egyptian Arabic. The
country's native name, Maṣr, is often used locally to refer to the
capital
CairoCairo itself. Similar to the role played by Parisian French ,
Cairene
ArabicArabic is by far the most dominant in all areas of national
life.

GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

The total number of Egyptian
ArabicArabic users in all countries is over
64.5 million, 62.3 million of which are native speakers in Egypt,
including several regional dialects. In addition, there are immigrant
Egyptian communities in the
Middle EastMiddle East ,
EuropeEurope ,
North AmericaNorth America ,
Latin AmericaLatin America ,
AustraliaAustralia and
South East AsiaSouth East Asia . Among the spoken
varieties of
ArabicArabic , standard Egyptian
ArabicArabic (based on the dialect
of the Egyptian capital) is the only one to have become a lingua
franca in other parts of the Arabic-speaking world for two main
reasons: the proliferation and popularity of Egyptian films and
other media in the region since the early 20th century; and the great
number of Egyptian teachers and professors who were instrumental in
setting up the education systems of various countries in the Arabian
Peninsula and who also taught there and in other countries such as
AlgeriaAlgeria and
LibyaLibya . Also many Lebanese artists choose to sing in
Egyptian as well as Lebanese . Standard Egyptian
ArabicArabic when used in
documents, broadcast media, prepared speeches, and sometimes in
liturgical purpose, is Cairene
ArabicArabic with loanwords from Modern
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic origin or code-switching between Cairene
ArabicArabic and
Modern Standard Arabic.

One of the earliest linguistic sketches of Egyptian
ArabicArabic is a
16th-century document entitled Dafʿ al-ʾiṣr ʿan kalām ahl Miṣr
(دفع الإصر عن كلام أهل مصر, "The Removal of the
Burden from the Language of the People of Egypt") by Yūsuf
al-Maġribi (يوسف المغربي). It contains key information on
early Egyptian
ArabicArabic and the language situation in medieval Egypt.
The main purpose of the document was to show that while the Egyptians'
vernacular contained many critical "errors" vis-à-vis Classical
Arabic, according to Maġribi, it was also related to
ArabicArabic in other
respects. With the ongoing
IslamizationIslamization , and
Arabization of the
country, Egyptian
ArabicArabic slowly supplanted spoken Egyptian . Local
chroniclers mention the continued use of Coptic Egyptian as a spoken
language until the 17th century AD by peasant women in Upper Egypt.
Coptic is still the liturgical language of the Egyptian Coptic Church
.

OFFICIAL STATUS

Egyptian
ArabicArabic has no official status, and is not officially
recognized as a language.
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic , a modernized form of
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic (Koranic Arabic), is the official language of Egypt
(see diglossia ). Interest in the local vernacular began in the 1800s,
as the Egyptian national movement for self-determination was taking
shape. Questions about the reform and modernization of
ArabicArabic came to
the fore, and for many decades to follow they were hotly debated in
Egyptian intellectual circles. Proposals ranged from developing
neologisms to replace archaic terminology in
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic ; to the
simplification of syntactical and morphological rules and the
introduction of colloquialisms ; to complete "Egyptianization"
(tamṣīr) by abandoning the so-called
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic in favor of
Masri or Egyptian Arabic.

Proponents of language reform in
EgyptEgypt included
Qasim AminQasim Amin , who also
wrote the first Egyptian feminist treatise, former President of the
Egyptian University ,
Ahmed Lutfi el-Sayed , and noted intellectual
Salama MoussaSalama Moussa . They adopted a modernist, secular approach and
disagreed with the assumption that
ArabicArabic was an immutable language
because of its association with the
QuranQuran . The first modern Egyptian
novel in which the dialogue was written in the vernacular was Muhammad
Husayn Haykal 's ZAYNAB in 1913; it wasn't until 1966 that Mustafa
Musharafa's Kantara Who Disbelieved was released - the first novel to
be written entirely in Egyptian Arabic. Other notable novelists such
as
Ihsan Abdel Quddous and
Yusuf Idris , and poets such as Salah
Jaheen ,
Abnudi and
Fagoumi , helped solidify vernacular literature as
a distinct literary genre.

Amongst certain groups within Egypt's elite, Egyptian
ArabicArabic enjoyed
a brief period of rich literary output. This dwindled with the rise of
Egyptian
Arab nationalismArab nationalism , which had gained wide popularity in Egypt
by the final years of the Egyptian and Sudanese monarchy , as
demonstrated vividly by Egypt's involvement in the Arab-Israeli War of
1948 under King Farouk . The
Egyptian Revolution of 1952Egyptian Revolution of 1952 , led by
Muhammad NaguibMuhammad Naguib and
Gamal Abdel NasserGamal Abdel Nasser , further enhanced the
significance of Arab nationalism, making it a central element of
Egyptian state policy. The importance of
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic was
re-emphasised in the public sphere by the revolutionary government,
and efforts to accord any formal language status to the Egyptian
vernacular were ignored. Egyptian
ArabicArabic was identified as a mere
dialect, and one that was not even spoken universally in
EgyptEgypt itself,
with almost all of Upper
EgyptEgypt speaking the Saidi dialect of Arabic.
Though the revolutionary government heavily sponsored the use of the
Egyptian vernacular in films, plays, television programmes, and music,
the pre-revolution use of
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic in official publications was
retained.

Linguistic commentators have noted the multi-faceted approach of the
Egyptian revolutionaries towards the
ArabicArabic language. Whereas Egypt's
first President
Muhammad NaguibMuhammad Naguib exhibited a preference for using
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic in his public speeches, his successor Gamal Abdel
Nasser was renowned for using the vernacular, and punctuating his
speeches with traditional Egyptian words, and expressions. Conversely,
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic was the norm for state news outlets, including
newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. This was especially true
of Egypt's national broadcasting company, the Arab Radio and
TelevisionTelevision Union , which was established with the intent of providing
content for the entire
Arab WorldArab World , not merely Egypt, hence the need
to broadcast in the standard rather than vernacular. The Voice of the
Arabs radio station in particular had an audience from across the
region, and the use of anything other than
Standard ArabicStandard Arabic was viewed
as eminently incongruous.

Saidi Arabic (Upper Egyptian) is a separate variety in Ethnologue.com
and
ISO 639-3 as well as in other sources, and the two varieties have
limited mutual intelligibility . It carries little prestige nationally
but continues to be widely spoken (19,000,000 speakers) including in
the north by rural migrants who have adapted partially to Egyptian
Arabic. For example, the Saidi genitive exponent is usually replaced
with Egyptian bitāʿ , but the realization of /ʔ / as is retained.
Second and third-generation migrants are monolingual in the Cairene
variety, but maintain cultural and familial ties to the south.

The traditional division between Lower and Upper
EgyptEgypt and their
respective differences go back to ancient times.
EgyptiansEgyptians today
commonly refer to the people of the north as BAḥARWA () and to those
of the south as ṣAʿAYDA (). The differences throughout Egypt,
however, are more wide-ranging and do not neatly correspond to this
simple division. There is a linguistic shift from the eastern to the
western parts of the delta , and the varieties spoken from
Gizah to el
Minya are further grouped into a Middle
EgyptEgypt cluster. Despite these
differences, there are features distinguishing all the Egyptian Arabic
varieties of the Nile Valley from any other
ArabicArabic variety . Such
features include reduction of long vowels in open and unstressed
syllables, the postposition of demonstratives and interrogatives, the
modal meaning of the imperfect, and the integration of the participle.

The Western Egyptian
Bedawi Arabic variety of the western desert
differs from all other
ArabicArabic varieties in
EgyptEgypt in that it
linguistically forms part of the Maghrebi group of varieties. The
same was formerly true of the Egyptian form of Judaeo-
ArabicArabic . Eastern
Egyptian
Bedawi Arabic is also distinct from Egyptian Arabic.

The phonology of Egyptian
ArabicArabic (or Cairene) differs slightly from
that of other varieties of the
Arabic languages and has its own unique
consonant and vowel inventories.

MORPHOLOGY

NOUNS

In contrast to CA and MSA, nouns are not inflected for case and lack
nunation (with the exception of certain fixed phrases in the
accusative case, such as شكراً , "thank you"). As all nouns take
their pausal forms, singular words and broken plurals simply lose
their case endings. In sound plurals and dual forms, where, in MSA,
difference in case is present even in pausal forms, the
genitive/accusative form is the one preserved. Fixed expressions in
the construct state beginning in abu, often geographic names, retain
their -u in all cases.

Egyptian
ArabicArabic object pronouns are clitics , in that they attach to
the end of a noun, verb or preposition, with the result forming a
single phonological word rather than separate words. Clitics can be
attached to the following types of words:

* A clitic pronoun attached to a noun indicates possession: béet
"house", béet-i "my house"; sikkíina "knife", sikkínt-i "my knife";
ʔább "father", ʔabúu-ya "my father". Note that the form of a
pronoun may vary depending on the phonological form of the word being
attached to (ending with a vowel or with one or two consonants), and
the noun being attached to may also have a separate "construct" form
before possessive clitic suffixes.
* A clitic pronoun attached to a preposition indicates the object of
the preposition: FILL IN EXAMPLES
* A clitic pronoun attached to a verb indicates the object of the
verb: ʃúft "I saw", ʃúft-u "I saw him", ʃuft-áha "I saw her".

With verbs, indirect object clitic pronouns can be formed using the
preposition li- plus a clitic. Both direct and indirect object clitic
pronouns can be attached to a single verb: agíib "I bring", agíb-hu
"I bring it", agib-húu-lik "I bring it to you", m-agib-hu-lkíi-ʃ "I
do not bring it to you".

VERBS

Verbs in
ArabicArabic are based on a stem made up of three or four
consonants. The set of consonants communicates the basic meaning of a
verb. Changes to the vowels in between the consonants, along with
prefixes and/or suffixes, specify grammatical functions such as tense,
person and number, in addition to changes in the meaning of the verb
that embody grammatical concepts such as causative , intensive ,
passive or reflexive .

Each particular lexical verb is specified by two stems, one used for
the past tense and one used for non-past tenses along with as
subjunctive and imperative moods. To the former stem, suffixes are
added to mark the verb for person, number and gender, while to the
latter stem, a combination of prefixes and suffixes are added. (Very
approximately, the prefixes specify the person and the suffixes
indicate number and gender.) The third person masculine singular past
tense form serves as the "dictionary form" used to identify a verb,
similar to the infinitive in English. (
ArabicArabic has no infinitive.) For
example, the verb meaning "write" is often specified as kátab, which
actually means "he wrote". In the paradigms below, a verb will be
specified as kátab/yíktib (where kátab means "he wrote" and yíktib
means "he writes"), indicating the past stem (katab-) and non-past
stem (-ktib-, obtained by removing the prefix yi-).

The verb classes in
ArabicArabic are formed along two axes. One axis
(described as "form I", "form II", etc.) is used to specify
grammatical concepts such as causative , intensive , passive or
reflexive , and involves varying the stem form. For example, from the
root K-T-B "write" is derived form I KáTAB/YíKTIB "write", form II
KáTTIB/YIKáTTIB "cause to write", form III Ká:TIB/YIKá:TIB
"correspond", etc. The other axis is determined by the particular
consonants making up the root. For example, defective verbs have a W
or Y as the last root consonant, which is often reflected in paradigms
with an extra final vowel in the stem (e.g. RáMA/YíRMI "throw" from
R-M-Y); meanwhile, hollow verbs have a W or Y as the middle root
consonant, and the stems of such verbs appear to have only two
consonants (e.g. Gá:B/YIGí:B "bring" from G-Y-B).

Strong Verbs

Strong verbs are those that have no "weakness" (e.g. W or Y) in the
root consonants. Each verb has a given vowel pattern for Past (a or i)
and Present (a or i or u). Combinations of each exist.

Regular Verbs, Form I

Form I verbs have a given vowel pattern for past (A or I) and present
(A, I or U). Combinations of each exist:

Note that, in general, the present indicative is formed from the
subjunctive by the addition of bi- (bi-a- is elided to ba-).
Similarly, the future is formed from the subjunctive by the addition
of ḥa- (ḥa-a- is elided to ḥa-). The i in bi- or in the
following prefix will be deleted according to the regular rules of
vowel syncope:

Boldfaced forms indicate the primary differences from the
corresponding forms of KATAB:

* The prefixes ti-, yi-, ni- have elision of i following bi- or
ḥa- (all verbs whose stem begins with a single consonant behave this
way).
* The imperative prefix i- is missing (again, all verbs whose stem
begins with a single consonant behave this way).
* Due to the regular operation of the stress rules, the stress in
the past tense forms DARRíS-IT and DARRíS-U differs from KáTAB-IT
and KáTAB-U.

The primary differences from the corresponding forms of KATAB (shown
in boldface) are:

* In the past, there are three stems: RáMA with no suffix, RAMé:-
with a consonant-initial suffix, RáM- with a vowel initial suffix.
* In the non-past, the stem RMI becomes RM- before a (vowel initial)
suffix, and the stress remains on the prefix, since the stem vowel has
been elided.
* Note also the accidental homonymy between masculine Tí-RMI,
í-RMI and feminine Tí-RM-I, í-RM-I.

This verb type is quite similar to the defective verb type
RáMA/YíRMI. The primary differences are:

* The occurrence of i and a in the stems are reversed: i in the
past, a in the non-past.
* In the past, instead of the stems RAMé:- and RáM-, the verb has
NISí:- (with a consonant-initial suffix) and NíSY- (with a vowel
initial suffix). Note in particular the y in NíSYIT and NíSYU as
opposed to RáMIT and RáMU.
* Elision of i in NISí:- can occur, e.g. áNA NSí:T "I forgot".
* In the non-past, because the stem has a instead of i, there is no
homonymy between masculine Tí-NSA, í-NSA and feminine Tí-NS-I,
í-NS-I.

Note that some other verbs have different stem variations, e.g.
MíʃI/YíMʃI "walk" (with i in both stems) and BáʔA/YíBʔA
"become, remain" (with a in both stems). The verb LáʔA/YILá:ʔI
"find" is unusual in having a mixture of a form I past and form III
present (note also the variations LíʔI/YíLʔA and LáʔA/YíLʔA).

Verbs other than form I have consistent stem vowels. All such verbs
have a in the past (hence form stems with -é:-, not -í:-). Forms V,
VI, X and IIq have a in the present (indicated by boldface below);
others have i; forms VII, VIIt, and VIII have i in both vowels of the
stem (indicated by italics below); form IX verbs, including
"defective" verbs, behave as regular doubled verbs:

Hollow have a W or Y as the middle root consonant. Note that for some
forms (e.g. form II and form III), hollow verbs are conjugated as
strong verbs (e.g. form II ʕáyyin/yiʕáyyin "appoint" from ʕ-Y-N,
form III gá:wib/yigá:wib "answer" from G-W-B).

This verb works much like Gá:B/YIGí:B "bring". Like that class, it
has two stems in the past, which are ḥABBé:- before
consonant-initial suffixes (first and second person) and ḥáBB-
elsewhere (third person). Note that é:- was borrowed from the
defective verbs; the
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic equivalent form would be
*ḥABáB-, e.g. *ḥABáB-T.

Other verbs have u or a in the present stem: BAṣṣ/YIBúṣṣ "to
look", ṣAḥḥ/YIṣáḥḥ "be right, be proper".

Assimilated verbs have W or Y as the first root consonant. Most of
these verbs have been regularized in Egyptian Arabic, e.g.
WáZAN/YíWZIN "to weigh" or WíṣíL/YíWṣAL "to arrive". Only a
couple of irregular verbs remain, e.g. WíʔIF/YúʔAF "stop" and
WíʔIʕ/YúʔAʕ "fall" (see below).

Doubly Weak Verbs

"Doubly weak" verbs have more than one "weakness", typically a W or Y
as both the second and third consonants. This term is in fact a
misnomer, as such verbs actually behave as normal defective verbs
(e.g. KáWA/YíKWI "iron (clothes)" from K-W-Y, ʔáWWA/YIʔáWWI
"strengthen" from ʔ-W-Y, Dá:WA/YIDá:WI "treat, cure" from D-W-Y).

In this section all verb classes and their corresponding stems are
listed, excluding the small number of irregular verbs described above.
Verb roots are indicated schematically using capital letters to stand
for consonants in the root:

Hence, the root F-M-L stands for all three-consonant roots, and
F-S-T-L stands for all four-consonant roots. (Traditional Arabic
grammar uses F-ʕ-L and F-ʕ-L-L, respectively, but the system used
here appears in a number of grammars of spoken
ArabicArabic dialects and is
probably less confusing for English speakers, since the forms are
easier to pronounce than those involving ʕ.)

The following table lists the prefixes and suffixes to be added to
mark tense, person, number and gender, and the stem form to which they
are added. The forms involving a vowel-initial suffix, and
corresponding stem PAv or NPv, are highlighted in silver. The forms
involving a consonant-initial suffix, and corresponding stem PAc, are
highlighted in gold. The forms involving a no suffix, and
corresponding stem PA0 or NP0, are unhighlighted.

TENSE/MOOD
PAST
NON-PAST

PERSON
SINGULAR
PLURAL
SINGULAR
PLURAL

1ST
PAc-T
PAc-NA
A-NP0
NI-NP0

2ND
MASCULINE
PAc-T
PAc-TU
TI-NP0
TI-NPv-U

FEMININE
PAc-TI
TI-NPv-I

3RD
MASCULINE
PA0
PAv-U
YI-NP0
YI-NPv-U

FEMININE
PAv-IT
TI-NP0

The following table lists the verb classes along with the form of the
past and non-past stems, active and passive participles, and verbal
noun, in addition to an example verb for each class.

Notes:

* Italicized forms are those that follow automatically from the
regular rules of vowel shortening and deletion.
* Multisyllabic forms without a stress mark have variable stress,
depending on the nature of the suffix added, following the regular
rules of stress assignment.
* Many participles and verbal nouns have acquired an extended sense.
In fact, participles and verbal nouns are the major sources for
lexical items based on verbs, especially derived (i.e. non-Form-I)
verbs.
* Some verb classes do not have a regular verbal noun form; rather,
the verbal noun varies from verb to verb. Even in verb classes that do
have a regular verbal noun form, there are exceptions. In addition,
some verbs share a verbal noun with a related verb from another class
(in particular, many passive verbs use the corresponding active verb's
verbal noun, which can be interpreted in either an active or passive
sense). Some verbs appear to lack a verbal noun entirely. (In such a
case, a paraphrase would be used involving a clause beginning with
inn.)
* Outside of Form I, passive participles as such are usually
non-existent; instead, the active participle of the corresponding
passive verb class (e.g. Forms V, VI, VIIt/VIIn for Forms II, III, I
respectively) is used. The exception is certain verbs in Forms VIII
and X that contain a "classicized" passive participle that is formed
in imitation of the corresponding participle in
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic ,
e.g. mistáʕmil "using", mustáʕmal "used".
* Not all forms have a separate verb class for hollow or doubled
roots. When no such class is listed below, roots of that shape appear
as strong verbs in the corresponding form, e.g. Form II strong verb
ḍáyyaʕ/yiḍáyyaʕ "waste, lose" related to Form I hollow verb
ḍá:ʕ/yiḍí:ʕ "be lost", both from root Ḍ-Y-ʕ.

One characteristic of Egyptian syntax which it shares with other
North AfricanNorth African varieties as well as some southern Levantine dialect
areas is in the two-part negative verbal circumfix /ma-...-ʃ(i)/

/ma-/ comes from the
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic negator /maː/. /-ʃ(i)/ is a
development of Classical /ʃajʔ/ "thing". This negating circumfix is
similar in function to the French circumfix ne ... pas.

The structure can end in a consonant /ʃ/ or in a vowel /i/, varying
according to the individual or region. The fuller ending /ʃi/ is
considered rural, and nowadays Cairene speakers usually use the
shorter /ʃ/. However, /ʃi/ was more common in the past, as attested
in old films .

The negative circumfix often surrounds the entire verbal composite
including direct and indirect object pronouns:

* /ma-katab-hum-ˈliː-ʃ/ "he didn't write them to me"

However, verbs in the future tense typically instead use the prefix
/miʃ/:

* /miʃ-ħa-ˈjiktib/ (or /ma-ħa-jikˈtibʃ/ "he won't write"

Interrogative sentences can be formed by adding the negation clitic
"(miʃ)" before the verb:

Also in common with other
ArabicArabic varieties is the loss of unique
agreement in the dual form: while the dual remains productive to some
degree in nouns, dual nouns are analyzed as plural for the purpose of
agreement with verbs, demonstratives, and adjectives. Thus "These two
Syrian professors are walking to the university" in MSA (in an SVO
sentence for ease of comparison) would be "هذان الأستاذان
السوريان يمشيان إلى الجامعة" Haḏān
al-ʾustāḏān as-Sūriyyān yamšiyān ʾilā l-ǧāmiʿah IPA: ,
which becomes in EA "الأستاذين السوريين دول
بيمشو للجامعة" il-ʔustazēn il-Suriyyīn dōl biyimʃu
lil-gamʕa, IPA: .

Unlike most other forms of Arabic, however, Egyptian prefers final
placement of question words in interrogative sentences. This is a
feature characteristic of the Coptic substratum of Egyptian
ArabicArabic .

COPTIC SUBSTRATUM

Egyptian
ArabicArabic appears to have retained a significant Coptic
substratum in its lexicon , phonology , and syntax . Coptic is the
latest stage of the indigenous
Egyptian languageEgyptian language spoken by the general
population of
EgyptEgypt until the mid-17th century when it was finally
completely supplanted among Egyptian Muslims and a majority of Copts
by the Egyptian Arabic. Some features that Egyptian
ArabicArabic shares with
the original ancient
Egyptian languageEgyptian language include certain prefix and
suffix verbal conjugations, certain emphatic and glottalized
consonants, as well as a large number of biliteral and triliteral
lexical correspondences.

Two syntactic features that are particular to Egyptian Arabic
inherited from Coptic are:

* postposed demonstratives "this" and "that" are placed after the
noun.

* Wh words (i.e. "who", "when", "why" remain in their "logical"
positions in a sentence rather than being preposed, or moved to the
front of the sentence, as in
Literary ArabicLiterary Arabic or English).

Also since Coptic, like other
North AfricanNorth African languages, lacked
interdental consonants it could possibly have influenced the
manifestation of their occurrences in
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic /θ / /ð /
/ðˤ / as their dental counterparts /t / /d / and the emphatic dental
/dˤ / respectively. (see consonants )

SOCIOLINGUISTIC FEATURES

Egyptian
ArabicArabic is used in most social situations, with Modern
Standard and
Classical ArabicClassical Arabic generally only being used in writing and
in highly religious and/or formal situations. However, within Egyptian
Arabic, there is a wide range of variation.
El-Said Badawi identifies
three distinct levels of Egyptian
ArabicArabic based chiefly on the quantity
of non-
ArabicArabic lexical items in the vocabulary: ʿĀmmiyyat
al-Musaqqafīn (Cultured Colloquial or
Formal Spoken Arabic ),
ʿĀmmiyyat al-Mutanawwirīn (Enlightened or Literate Colloquial), and
ʿĀmmiyyat al-'Ummiyīn (Illiterate Colloquial). Cultured
Colloquial/
Formal Spoken Arabic is characteristic of the educated
classes and is the language of discussion of high-level subjects, but
it is nevertheless Egyptian Arabic; it is characterized by use of
technical terms imported from foreign languages and MSA, as well as
closer attention to the pronunciation of certain letters (particularly
qāf ). It is relatively standardized and, being closer to the
standard, is understood fairly well across the Arab world. On the
opposite end of the spectrum, Illiterate Colloquial, common to rural
areas and to working-class neighborhoods in the cities, has an almost
exclusively
ArabicArabic vocabulary; loanwords are generally either very old
borrowings (e.g. جمبرى gambari, "shrimp ," from Italian gamberi,
"shrimp" (pl.)) or refer to technological items that find no or poor
equivalents in
ArabicArabic (e.g. تلفزيون til(i)vizyōn/til(i)fezyōn
, television ). Enlightened Colloquial (ʿĀmmiyyat al-Mutanawwirīn)
is the language of those who have had some schooling and are
relatively affluent; loanwords tend to refer to pop-cultural items,
consumer products, and fashions. It is also understood widely in the
Arab world, as it is the lingua franca of Egyptian film and
television.

In contrast to MSA and most other varieties of Arabic, Egyptian
ArabicArabic has a form of the
T-V distinctionT-V distinction . In the singular, انت
inta/inti is acceptable in most situations, but when addressing clear
social superiors (e.g. persons older than oneself, superiors at work,
certain government officials), the form حضرتك
ḥaḍritak/ḥaḍritik, meaning "Your Grace " is preferred (c.f.
Spanish usted ).

This use of ḥaḍritak/ḥaḍritik is linked to the system of
honorifics in daily Egyptian speech. The honorific taken by a given
person is determined by their relationship to the speaker and their
occupation.

Standard ArabicStandard Arabic ustādh, "professor", "gentleman"
Besides actual university professors and schoolteachers , used for
experts in certain fields. May also be used as a generic informal
reference, as bēh or bāsha.

USṭA/ASṭA
/
Turkish usta, "master"
Drivers and also skilled laborers.

RAYYIS

Standard ArabicStandard Arabic raʿīs, "chief"
Skilled laborers. The term predates the use of the same word to
mean "president", and traditionally referred to the chief of a
village.

Standard ArabicStandard Arabic ʿamm, "paternal uncle"
Older male servants or social subordinates with whom the speaker
has a close relationship. It can also be used as a familiar term of
address, much like basha. The use of the word in its original meaning
is also current, for third-person reference. The second-person term of
address to a paternal uncle is ʿammo ; onkel , from French oncle, may
also be used, particularly for uncles unrelated by blood.

Ottoman Turkish abi/ağabey, "elder brother"
Male relatives older than the speaker by about 10–15 years.
Upper-class, and somewhat archaic.

ABLA

Ottoman Turkish abla, "elder sister"
Female relatives older than the speaker by about 10–15 years.

Other honorifics also exist.

In usage, honorifics are used in the second and third person.

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REGIONAL VARIATION

Egyptian
ArabicArabic varies regionally across its sprachraum, with certain
characteristics being noted as typical of the speech of certain
regions.

ALEXANDRIA

AlexandriaAlexandria 's dialect (west Delta ) is noted for certain shibboleths
separating its speech from that of
CairoCairo (south Delta). The ones most
frequently commented on in popular discourse are the use of the word
falafel as opposed to ṭa`meyya for the fava-bean fritters common
across the country, and the pronunciation of the word for the Egyptian
pound as , rather than the Cairene (closer to the pronunciation of
the origin of the term, the British guinea ). The speech of the older
Alexandrian families is also noted for use of the plural in the first
person even when speaking in the singular.

PORT SAID

Port SaidPort Said 's dialect (east Delta) is noted for a "heavier," more
guttural sound than other regions of the country.

STUDYING EGYPTIAN ARABIC

Egyptian
ArabicArabic has been a subject of study by scholars and
laypersons in the past and the present for many reasons, including
personal interest, egyptomania , business, news reporting, and
diplomatic and political interactions. Egyptian Colloquial Arabic
(ECA) is now a field of study in both graduate and undergraduate
levels in many higher education institutions and universities in the
world. When added to academic instruction,
Arabic languageArabic language schools and
university programs provide Egyptian
ArabicArabic courses in a classroom
fashion, while others facilitate classes for online study.

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one
another in the spirit of brotherhood.

CHARACTERISTIC WORDS AND SENTENCES IN EGYPTIAN ARABIC

* إزيك ("How are you ")
* إزيك ("How are you ")
* إزيكو ("How are you ")